Volkswagen is openly exploring a full-electric successor to the Touareg, a move that would keep a flagship SUV in the line-up even as the current combustion model disappears in a few months. The logic is simple: VW still wants a car for well-off buyers who want space, quality, and presence, but do not want the premium-badge performance theater that comes with rivals from Audi, BMW, or Porsche.
That sounds like a niche, and it is. But niche products can still shape a brand: the Touareg has always been less about volume and more about giving Volkswagen a top shelf without pretending to be something else. The company had the same idea with the Phaeton, which was quietly retired in 2016 after failing to convince enough people to park a Volkswagen in the executive lane.
Why Volkswagen still sees room above the mainstream
Sales boss Martin Sander says the gap between mainstream and premium is real, and VW wants to keep serving it. He describes Touareg buyers as affluent but low-key, the sort of customers who may run businesses and want a high-end SUV without broadcasting it at every kerbside coffee stop. That is a useful reminder that not every luxury customer is chasing a badge; some are chasing discretion, which is often just as profitable.
Volkswagen also has a broader strategic problem to solve. The brand has been leaning harder into higher-volume, lower-cost models, which makes commercial sense, but it can leave a hole at the top of the range. A successor to the Touareg would help VW keep a halo product while the rest of the line-up does the heavy lifting.
What an electric Touareg could look like
Any future version would stay a large SUV and would be electric, with Volkswagen arguing that SUVs account for 80% of that segment. The model is also likely to arrive on the incoming SSP platform, after the likes of the Volkswagen ID Golf, and could borrow technology from Audi and Porsche as the current Touareg does in some areas.
- Body style: large SUV
- Powertrain: full-electric
- Platform: SSP
- Likely technology sharing: Audi and Porsche
The real test for Volkswagen’s top end
The challenge is not building another electric SUV. Everyone is doing that, from legacy rivals to Chinese challengers with less baggage and fewer internal politics. The hard part is making a Volkswagen feel expensive enough without sliding into parody, and that is where the old Touareg formula still has some life left in it.
If VW does green-light the project, the question is whether it wants a true Touareg replacement or something more like a carefully disguised statement piece for a brand that keeps insisting it is ”for the people” while also shopping in the executive aisle. That tension is exactly why the next move will be interesting.